Babcock confident of strong progress

FTSE 100 engineering support services company, Babcock said it has traded well in the interim period from October to date and remains confident of meeting expectations for the year.

The group added that market conditions remain positive, with bidding activity high across the group, making it confident of delivering strong progress on last year.

The Marine and Technology division performed in line with its expectations as did Defence and Security.

The Support Services division also performed in line with company expectations, with contracts won in the period totalling in excess of £100m.

Its International division did well, despite the extended holiday period in South Africa over December, with good demand for equipment and plant hire.

The order book stands at just over £12bn from around £12.5bn at the time of its half year results in November 2012.

"Babcock remains well positioned to help our customers develop cost efficient support solutions and we believe the current economic climate will continue to create significant medium and long-term growth opportunities, both in the UK and overseas," it said in a statement.

"The scale of our order book continues to provide excellent visibility of future revenue streams across the group. This position is further strengthened by the medium to long-term growth opportunities which continue to flow into tracking and then into the bid pipeline."

CJ